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With their shiny, brilliantly striped shells and bodies up to 8 inches (20 centimetres) long, the snails have become public enemy No. 1 for epidemiologists and citizens have grown to fear their ability to transmit diseases and harm crops.

"I never heard of them before, but now they're everywhere," said Yusmila Marín, a 29-year-old nurse who lives in a neighbourhood rife with the mollusks, whose scientific name is Achatina fulica.

In recent months, Cuban authorities have activated the nationwide civil defence system to battle the snails. But some say the state's response is inadequate.

Marín and families in the Villa Panamericana neighbourhood are keeping children indoors to play due to the danger of infection from the snails, which can transmit a potentially severe brain infection called meningoencephalitis and an abdominal disease known as angiostrongiliasis.

First detected in Cuba in 2014, the snail can now be found throughout Havana and in almost every one of the island's provinces. It's not known how the snail arrived in the nation.






"It's a real challenge," he said. "No country has been able to control this plague and Cuba won't be able to in the short or mid-term."

I lived in Ghana for 3 years and ate the snails whenever possible. Delicious.

Hmm, unwelcome voracious invader, World wide plague of garbage. Could the snails be genetically engineered to consume plastic, dumped in escape proof silos?